Which aspect of integral are you referring to? Ken Wilber’s framework itself, or applications of the framework in the world?
When it comes to the theory itself, Ken has made several critical updates to his theory over the years, all resulting from constructive feedback and criticism he received over the years. This is what brought his work from the “Wilber 1” phase all the way to today’s “Wilber 5” phase, each phase being more comprehensive than the last. So in this case, Ken himself is the final arbiter for his own theory, but the revisions themselves have come from a deepening of insight that have either come through his own thinking, or from his own intersubjective network of trusted peers.
And of course, this theory has been expanded and refined by other experts through projects like the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice. There are others in the space who have tried to branch the theory and make it their own, but by and large I have been underwhelmed by those efforts.
As for applications of the theory, I’d say that is more like poetry in motion. All of us are doing our best to enact the world through this framework, and then sharing our insights and observations within a community of the adequate. We then do our best to separate the adequate feedback from the inadequate (some are more qualified than others to criticize integral thought, which is true for every known field of human inquiry), and then re-integrate that feedback into our ongoing sense-making. Sometimes this causes us to strengthen our positions, other times it prompts us to rethink our positions.
The reason being, even if we agree 100% about the details of the framework itself, it remains true that two people with similar familiarity with the model, but coming from two different kosmic addresses, will still see somewhat different things when using the model to enact reality. That’s where good-faith enfoldment comes in, where both parties can find a way to fold their respective truth claims together and find a deeper, wider mutual understanding (and the shared reality this mutual understanding generates).
Technically, Orange is where the worst of the systemically racist social structures – slavery, for example – hits the rocks. There are Orange surface structures that continue to operate according to the inertias of history (such as “colonialism”, which is a particular expression of amber values [or perhaps “umber” values] within an emerging orange technoeconomic system), but the deep structures of Orange are themselves worldcentric. And again, it was the combination of newly-emerging Orange worldcentric values in the UL and LL, plus the newly-emerging technologies of the Industrial Age in the LR, that allowed us to finally abolish slavery in these modernizing nations for the first time in history.
Green then continues to deepen this worldcentric care, especially for historically marginalized groups, and brings with it a newfound appreciation of the various cultural constructs and language patterns that sustain racist thoughts, interpretations, behaviors, and outcomes. Which is why Orange attempts at multiculturalism are often handicapped by an assimilative “colorblind” mentality, which tries to ignore our differences for the sake of appreciating our sameness.
Green then criticizes these approaches, because they notice that a) the “colorblind” culture that people are being made to assimilate into is more often than not a monocultural expression of the majority culture that is still anchored by yesterday’s inertias, and b) a genuine multi-cultural approach requires, you know, multiple cultures and subcultures that can live in harmony together. And I think they are handicapped by the fact that many of these cultures and subcultures are themselves ethnocentric, and Green doesn’t know how to include ethnocentric cultures in the name of multiculturalism, without themselves slipping into ethnocentric thought. I think we can see this slide back to ethnocentrism-in-the-name-of-worldcentrism in Ibram X Kendi’s controversial and contradictory statement:
“Racial discrimination is not inherently racist.” “The defining question is whether the discrimination is creating equity or inequity. If discrimination is creating equity, then it’s anti-racist. If discrimination is creating inequity then it is racist. The only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
I think this statement (which I largely disagree with, with caveats) is itself the product of green thinking (a green perception of the social dynamics at play, largely in Zones 4 and 7) but interpreted through and enforced by amber values of ethnocentricity.
The reason I am spending so much time on this point, is because CRT — which, again, I think has some mature green insights that we should probably find a way to integrate — has what I perceive as an extremely dangerous idea sitting in its very center: that we need to reject the very products of Orange that get us out of racism and bigotry in the first place. They believe (incorrectly) that we need to reject ideas such as “neutrality” and “objectivity”, which are the deep structures of orange, because they (correctly) believe we need to find a way to eradicate the inertias of colonialism that are often associated with Orange (which, as I said above, are actually the surface structures of Orange as it presented itself historically, enmeshed with the prevailing Amber values of the time).
In other words, they are confusing the surface structures of Orange with the deep structures of Orange, and if they successfully deconstruct those deep structures as they want to, then a) they have completely annihilated the very conveyor belt that allowed them to grow into Green perspectives in the first place, b) they have dismantled the very deep structures that get us out of racism and bigotry, and c) they literally leave people nowhere else to go but Amber. It is a well-intentioned disaster, and can only end up creating more suffering in a misguided attempt to reduce suffering.
) force would take Red action, might best be met with response in a language (physical, military) that they would understand.